


If Only Love Could Mend My Soul

by crazyparakiss



Series: If Only Love Could... [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, M/M, Mpreg, Stillbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 07:59:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyparakiss/pseuds/crazyparakiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can still count the months, the hours, the seconds; time passes, but he remembers, as if it were yesterday, the very moment her heart stopped beating. It's a sin for which he will never stop atoning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Only Love Could Mend My Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd sequel to If Only Love Could Sustain Life. Shorter than the Stiles version, but I just think Derek's has to be shorter since he's not nearly as chatty as Stiles. Or I could just be a lazy wench who is making excuses. Also, this will be very confusing without having read the first part, probably.

 

 

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Derek glances at Scott, standing near the railing leading up to his bedroom.

 

A snap draws his attention away from the conflicted expression Scott’s wearing, “Hey, uh, Derek— _I_ —was asking, not Scott.” Derek _knows_ Stiles was the one who asked, but Scott is Stiles’s Alpha for all intents and purposes, as well as his best friend. At this point in Derek’s life he doesn’t need more pack dynamic/territory drama.

 

He sighs as he takes note of the determination gleaming in Stiles’s wide bright eyes. “Are you sure?”

 

“Yes,” Stiles says, with conviction, even though Derek and Scott both hear the way his heart stutters.

 

 ***

 

Derek sends Isaac with Scott, and he notices Isaac goes without much protest. There’s a kind of adoration there that Derek’s been ignoring. Cora has been absent since morning. Derek’s certain she’s still disappointed over their reunion. It wasn’t the Hollywood sham of tears and professions of undying family loyalty—mostly they were stilted and both wary as Derek stumbled over words about Laura.

 

Stiles is sitting awkwardly on the sofa, bouncing his knees and chewing away at his bitten down nails. “So, uh, I like the new place. Very…Batman, if I’m being honest.” Stiles doesn’t breathe between sentences when he’s nervous, Derek’s noticed. “Why the hell do you and Scott get to be Batman and I’m always stuck playing Robin? I swear this sh-” Derek cuts off his rant by calling Stiles’s name. “Huh, yeah?”

 

“How do you want to do this?” Derek says, face impassive but heart thundering in his chest. Luckily, for him, Stiles cannot hear how nervous he is by this development.

 

He watches Stiles swallow as he hears the movement in his throat. Saliva wets his lips when his sharp tongue dances out to touch their chapped surface and Derek is mesmerized. “Um, uh, I dunno—how do you think these people define virginity?” Stiles’s words are a garble as he chews them out around his thumb, “I mean—can I just touch your cock, lick it, suck it, or like do I gotta have it in me for it to count?”

 

Derek tries not to imagine it, but he does and in his mind he sees Stiles nervously tugging down Derek’s jeans, Stiles clumsily taking hold of his cock, Stiles licking him and trying to look sexy as he takes Derek in his mouth. Finally, he sees Stiles, on his hands and knees flushed pink with desire as he begs Derek from amid the black tangle of Derek’s sheets. He’s turned on by this kid and it makes him sick—makes him feel like Kate.

 

Stiles takes his silence for lack of knowledge and says, “Maybe we ought to do it all just to make sure.”

 

That’s an alarm bell if Derek’s ever heard one, but he ignores the warning.

 

Later he’ll live to regret it.

 

 ***

 

They meet so many times Derek loses count. The first time is to save Stiles from virgin sacrifice. After it becomes something of a game. Stiles shows up with flimsy excuses the first week.

 

_I left my homework._

_Is Scott here, there’s an…uh…emergency._

_I locked myself out of the house; can I hang here for a bit?_

_Man, Scott ditched me for Isaac._

_I’ve got some questions about Lycanthropy—Lo Mein?_

 

And then the next week when the grate to the lift opens Derek crosses his arms and gives Stiles a look. As if he’s tired of the lying and Stiles deflates when he says says, “Fuck it, look man, I like your dick.” It’s wrong. Derek knows better, but he’s pulling Stiles close, slipping his hand up his shirt as he devours his mouth. “Yeah, I like your mouth, too.” Stiles pants when they pull apart, “Let’s put it to good use.” It’s almost funny how sure Stiles is when it comes to sex. He’s such a fumbling idiot most days Derek would never expect this suave ease with how he moves against Derek. It reminds him of what his father told him during his sex talk (which was embarrassing and traumatic since the whole house heard), _some people are naturals others learn through trial and error_. Stiles falls into that natural category. Derek’s certain he’s always been a trial and error and more error kind of guy.

 

Thankfully, he knows enough to keep Stiles arching and begging for more.

 

“I want you in me,” Stiles whispers as the sun begins to set. Derek can feel the moon pulling at him—increasing his lust—he growls out a _yes_. Stiles should be terrified when his fangs lengthen and his claws begin to grow, but Stiles is reckless and welcomes danger like others welcome friends.

 

 ***

 

The weeks blend into months and they fall into a predictable rhythm. Until, one afternoon, when Stiles wanders in and reeks of a scent Derek thought was long forgotten. It stops him in his rummaging through the cupboards for something to make for dinner. Turning, he sees Stiles perched over his homework, chewing at those lips that Derek craves in sleep. “Are you feeling okay?” Derek asks without thought, and Stiles glances up.

 

“I’ve been feeling off, but it’s cool I’ll just peel an onion and it’ll clear up in no time.” He shrugs as if it’s nothing unusual, and Derek doesn’t press.

 

 ***

 

Two weeks pass without Stiles’s presence and Derek doesn’t think anything of it. He’s too busy worrying about Deucalion and ritual sacrifices. Amazing sex has to take a backseat to the threat of evil and cruel death. Cora stays more while Stiles is away, and something of their old relationship returns. It’s tentative and still full of doubt, but there is a glimmer of hope in there for what’s left of the Hale children—even if Peter’s still around.

 

Derek doesn’t dwell on the slight ache Stiles’s absence creates, and goes over disappearance patterns with his sister.

 

 ***

 

He’s out grabbing a burger one evening at Lou’s Diner when Stiles’s scent catches him before he’s taken his first bite. Derek’s gaze zeroes in on Stiles the second he’s through the glass door, and he’s hardly surprised when Stiles stalks towards his table.

 

“We need to talk,” Stiles says and Derek’s heart thunders in his chest despite the cool mask of indifference he wears.

 

 ***

 

The discussion takes place in Stiles’s car, and Derek feels as if they’ve come full circle in this Jeep. Stiles drums his restless thumbs against the steering wheel and avoids Derek’s gaze. He goes along with it, waylaying the inevitable by a few precious minutes of silence. A silence in which he can pretend this conversation isn’t going to drastically change his life.

 

Stiles’s breaths are rapid just like his heart, and Derek watches Stiles’s meltdown from the corner of his eye. Finally, he takes pity and asks, “Did your dad find out about this— _thing_ —that we’ve been doing?” Derek wishes he could call those hours between them more; especially when he sees the hurt slide across Stiles’s honest face.

 

Then it’s gone, and Stiles might as well be as distant as the sun. His hands quit their anxious tapping and his breathing slows, but his heart is still beating out a rapid rhythm. “I’m pregnant, Derek,” he says, at last; Stiles’s words echoing in the emptiness between them. Derek knew; remembered the smell and the calming sense of new life from all of his cousins.

 

Though, he knew the moment it happened-if he was being completely honest—the faint scent hit him as did the thunderous sound of cells beginning a new life. It’s a moment he’ll never be able to forget. The moon pulled at the animal beneath his skin, he howled, and through red vision he saw Stiles arching with perfect lips stretching around a silent scream. That was the perfect moment of creation.

 

Derek remains silent while Stiles searches his face with wide bright eyes, and he cannot bring himself to hope that maybe Stiles wants this. Nor can Derek admit that he wants this, with Stiles, more than he wants everything he’s lost back. So he falls in line and plays the role he knows best.

 

Stoic he turns and says, “And?”

 

“And?” Stiles sputters out, angry and hurt, “And?! It’s a big fucking deal, Derek! Boys don’t just get pregnant from fucking other dudes. I’ve got to tell my dad, and THIS is how you react?!”

 

Derek yearns to reach out, pull Stiles into him, and kiss him until they find that common ground of comfort that lived between them beneath Derek’s dark sheets. He doesn’t; instead Derek opens the door and doesn’t offer Stiles a word as he makes his way back to his car under the cover of night.

 

He hears Stiles’s sobs and it takes every ounce of self-control he has not to run to him and take all of this back.

 

Somewhere in his mind is a voice, that sounds like Laura’s, saying he’s making a terrible mistake. As usual, Derek ignores it.

 

 ***

 

Scott tells him Stiles is keeping the baby. Isaac, Cora, and Boyd hover around his table in silence with their eyes downcast, but he feels their judgment in the tense lines of their bodies. Derek doesn’t offer Scott’s words a reply, and soon the room reeks of disappointment and disgust.

 

“He’s ecstatic,” Peter croons in Derek’s direction, and no one believes him. As usual Peter’s the only one who knows Derek. Knows Derek and understands his angry faces and damning silences because Peter is waiting for him to weaken so that he can take the power he seeks. Derek knows Peter as well as Peter knows Derek and he thinks it’s sad because the only person he wants to know hides his heart under sarcasm. Though, Derek’s no better—he hides his feelings beneath violence and rage.

 

Derek steers the conversation back around to the sacrifices and finding some creature known as a Darach. He sees mutiny written across their faces, but the pack and Scott don’t stop him. There are evils greater than Derek to be handled.

 

 ***

 

He’s not there when Stiles tells his dad. Derek knows he should be, but he’s not that strong and he doesn’t admit what being there for Stiles will mean. If his dad were still around he’d call Derek a worthless excuse for a man, and his mother would call him a cub trying to play wolf. Even though he’s not _in there_ he perches outside in a tree, and listens.

 

Stiles’s father rubs his hands , Derek can hear his dry calloused palms as they brush together, and the sound is only one of many on the loud anxious soundtrack in his ear. Stiles’s heartbeat is the most disconcerting—a rapid beat that threatens to become a full-blown panic attack. Derek’s almost tempted to go to him, and calm him with the surprise of his presence. He’s spared having to break down the door when Stiles’s father goes to him and says, “What’s wrong, son?”

 

“Daddy,” Stiles whispers with a broken sob, and Derek’s heart breaks. He can hear the rustling of the sheriff’s jacket and Stiles’s gasps as he cried harder.

 

“My boy,” his father’s voice is soft and full of the promise that there is nothing on God’s green earth that could make him ashamed to be Stiles’s father. Derek’s throat nearly closes when he hears that voice—it’s a comfort he hasn’t known since before his mother’s death. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

 

“I’ve messed up, in the worst way possible.” Derek can hear the kiss Stiles’s father presses against Stiles’s forehead.

 

“What’s worse than running through the night with werewolves?”

 

“Getting pregnant by one,” Stiles whispers morose and despondent.

 

 ***

 

It’s a small miracle when Stiles’s father doesn’t threaten Derek with bodily harm or death. What he brings to Derek’s door at four o’clock in the morning is a disappointed stare and a heavy sigh. They weren’t close or friends, exactly, but since the discovery of things that go bump in the night Derek and Sheriff Stilinski have had an understanding. Derek keeps his illegal activity and death toll to a minimum, and the sheriff lets Derek deal with the supernatural shit without complaint.

 

This changes things; Derek can tell.

 

“I know I can’t kill you—for one I don’t feel like involving Argent. And second despite your current extremely fucked up _relationship_ with my son, I doubt he’d appreciate your death.” As he speaks he lets himself into the loft and Derek doesn’t move to stop him. Critical blue eyes brush over the bare minimum of Derek’s possessions, and he can read anger in the sheriff’s scent when his gaze lingers on Derek’s spare bed; he doesn’t dare tell this man they never fucked there. When he faces Derek his arms are crossed over his chest and he levels Derek with a serious glare. “Now, Stiles isn’t some damsel in distress and I’m not stupid enough to think you’d fall into any category of hero, but I do want to know what your intentions are regarding my son and this life you’ve helped create.”

 

Derek sighs and goes to the fridge, he can’t get drunk but he still tries and so he pulls out the vodka and offers Sheriff Stilinski a drink. He’s unsurprised when his sorta-in-law grunts out a yes. When two shooters slip easily down the sheriff’s throat Derek coughs uncomfortably and tries to gather an acceptable response.

 

“I’ll be there for him,” Derek says, but even to him the words lack conviction. He cares about Stiles, yes, but he’s not the man to stand by him and give him what Stiles deserves.

 

“Boy,” Sheriff Stilinski snorts, “I’ve got a better bullshit meter than your sensitive ears. I don’t want to hear some rose tinted lie; I want the truth.”

 

“The truth?” Derek stumbles over that, and laughs but the sound lacks mirth—if anything it’s heavy with grief. “The truth is I don’t know. I want this and I don’t. I’m not a man who can give a person happiness or stability.” He gestures around them, “You can see for yourself. This is what I’ve got and it’s not much and it will never be much.” He hasn’t been this honest since Paige, but somehow he feels he can admit his failures to this man and admit that he hasn’t a fucking clue when it comes to life. “I’m a walking mess, sir, and doubt I’ll ever be right.” It’s the most Derek’s ever shared with a stranger. He’s had too much trouble with letting people in before, but Mr. Stilinski seems trustworthy. His son has proven himself to be the most trustworthy person Derek knows.

 

He shakes his head and a world weary sigh leaves him when he glances Derek’s way. All Derek can do is look at him and wonder what it’s like to be a father in this situation. In as little as nine months he’ll be there; in that world of unending fear, and he’s not sure he’ll ever be ready for that. Sheriff Stilinski runs a hand over his worn face, and Derek tracks the age in the back of his hand. He wonders if Stiles has put the age in his face, hair, and skin. Is that what a child will do for Derek?

 

When Sheriff Stilinski leaves Derek collapses into the cushions of his couch and groans as he tries to hide the world behind his hands.

 

 ***

 

He avoids Stiles. He doesn’t try to deny it when Scott and Isaac accuse him of cowardice. It’s true, no point in trying to pretend otherwise. A month slips by, and then another. Derek ignores the lonely cry of his soul as he stares out his window.

 

The rain pours down the panes of glass, and he watches the broken, beaded trails of water they leave. He wonders in the silence if Stiles is crying.

 

 ***

 

The pack is gone when Derek regains consciousness, a couple more months later, and drags himself from the abandoned warehouse. He cannot find their heartbeats. Derek allows himself to be called by the lingering trails of their scents. One trail leads him to Jennifer Blake. She’s in her car, but he can detect Stiles on her, as if he’d been in her presence earlier in the day, and he tries to get to that bit of Stiles. His bloody hand presses into her window, startling her.

 

He’s not proud of taking her to bed, but he’s lonely and wants contact. It feels like lifetimes since Stiles, and he craves the touch.

 

“Derek,” she whispers and he bites his lip on the sound of Stiles’s name. He can hear Laura’s voice—calling him a stupid fool.

 

 ***

 

Not even a day later Stiles tells him the baby is gone. He feels like somehow this is his karma. This is the result of yet another familial betrayal. He took Kate to bed, and a few days later his family was gone. He takes Jennifer, and so goes his cub’s small heartbeat.

 

***

 

For weeks he brushes a longing finger over the grainy white and black pictures. He doesn’t cry, he’s long since forgotten how to form tears. Instead he puts the sonograms in his mothers old memory box, and inhales the familiar scent of ash before he closes the lid on his daughter’s picture.

 

 ***

 

Jennifer becomes a constant companion in his life after that and most nights she sleeps soundly beside him, but Derek lies awake staring at the same moon he knows Stiles can see from his room. It fills him with a deep, weary sense of longing.

 

 ***

 

Stiles comes to some of the pack meetings, he sees the way Jennifer’s hand lingers on Derek’s arm. Derek knows because he sees his eyes as they linger on her and Derek’s interactions. His heart rate spikes, and Derek, along with the others, never mention the obvious distress Stiles feels. They never mention his acrid scent when the pain takes him. They’re so used to pretending Stiles is invincible that sometimes they forget how very human he can be, but no one wants to break the fragile denial. Perhaps it will all crumble if they try to make him deal with the pain; like houses built on volatile ground one wrong move and they fall to ruin.

 

***

 

Derek is told that Stiles is in at Berkley, but when he goes to see Stiles, out of gnawing guilt, the administrators tell him there isn't a student enrolled there by that name. When Stiles disappears from California, no one tells him where Stiles has gone and Derek loses it.

 

Many a night he runs through the preserve and howls. Howls for a daughter that doesn’t walk his floors, and howls for a mate that is now gone. A mate he can no longer feel. In his desperate mind he hears the phantom howls of his dead pack; his mother, Laura, and his cub. They do nothing to soothe his soul.

 

 ***

 

He writes to Stiles. So many letters he can’t keep count; most he burns on the building’s roof when the nights are cool and the stars are bright. Some he cannot bear to part with. Like the one he sits and writes after Jen leaves for work. He tells Stiles that he hears _her_ footsteps on the wooden floors of his loft. And when the moon is full he hears _her_ gentle howl. He smells Stiles in his sheets, sees him out of the corner of his eye, but finds he’s gone whenever he turns to seek him out.

 

***

 

There are nights when he thrusts into Jennifer and finds minimal, if any, satisfaction in his orgasm. It’s not her fault—the fault lies entirely with him. In his mind he sees Stiles, and wants to call his name. Wants to make him real again, but it’s selfish and Derek refuses to chase that fantasy. Stiles deserves better, and so does Jen.

 

***

 

He tells Jen when she finds the ultrasound photos. Derek watches her face fall with a resigned expression. She’s hurt, and he doesn’t blame her. It can’t be easy being told the one you want loves another. Derek files it away in that place that is getting a little too full with his failures.

 

***

 

Six months later she elopes with a nice human man, and Derek sends her his congratulations. Not long after Jennifer sends him Stiles’s essay, and for the first time in years Derek cries. He spills coffee on the back of the folded paper and throws it off along with his mug to the ground. He’d gotten it out of Deaton, before, but reading it in Stiles’s hand—hearing it in Stiles’s voice—breaks a dam that he’s allowed to build through the past two years.

 

***

 

Years pass. Derek goes to work at the sheriff’s station. He’s a deputy, goes to lunch with his co-workers, and is slowly growing into friends with Sheriff (John) Stilinski. Derek joins him for dinner some nights when Cora is out with Isaac. It easies a bit of the loneliness for them, but never fills the void. John sees Stiles in this house, and Derek smells the lingering scent he’s left in the fabrics, carpets, and walls.

 

 John speaks as if Stiles is gone forever, at first it was teasing but as the years grow longer it becomes a painful reality he sounds as if he’s trying to accept. Derek wonders if it’s true; if Stiles is never coming home, if John will never look anything less than sad, and if Derek is doomed to a life without happiness. He’d give anything to bring Stiles back; even his life. If it would ease the pain viced around Stiles’s heart Derek would gladly go to die.

 

***

 

One night, six years after Stiles left him alone in this nowhere town, Derek goes home, and he sits down to write what he thinks will be his final letter to Stiles. It’s full of anger, and hurt, and all the things he’s never said before—about how stupid Stiles was for allowing Deaton to perform a C-section on him, without knocking him out. Of how lost Derek feels without Stiles’s presence. Mostly, it’s full of all the things he would do to make things right for Stiles. To make Stiles happy. When he’s looking at the pile of letters in his ash scented box Derek wonders how easy it would be to eat a wolfsbane bullet; he’s tempted, sorely tempted, but he decides Death can spare him one more day.

 

 ***

 

When Stiles’s scent and his heartbeat return to Beacon Hills Derek wakes from a dead sleep after working a long double. Before he can stop himself he’s out of bed, out of the loft, and running through the streets as fast as his wolf can go. He skids to a halt, watching Stiles as he moves about his childhood room. Long white fingers brush the nightstand where Stiles once kept the pictures of their shared treasure, and when he sees Stiles bow his head, to hear him whisper an I’m so sorry, Derek leaves.

 

***

 

After he gets home, Derek stares around the emptiness of his loft. The only bright spot is the girly comforter Cora bought some months back. Though she’s rarely home from school enough to make use of it, but Derek doesn’t have the heart to change it. The colors remind him of the phantom child he feels around him. The ghostly promise of what life would’ve been like had she not been stolen, so soon, from the womb.

 

Derek thinks of all of these things as he pulls out another piece of paper; tears streaming down his face as he writes:

 

_STILES,_

_I WANTED TO NAME HER LAURA._

 

***

When Stiles comes to him Derek holds onto him with a bruising strength that conveys every raw fear he has about Stiles blowing into his life so fast, only to be gone with the birth of dawn. Though, Stiles surprises him when each night turns to day, and there he is—naked, pale, beautiful—in Derek’s large bed. In the silent hours of early morning Derek can pretend he’s never failed this man, and can pretend that all the horrible shit was just a terrible dream. He’s never been good at pretending—so most days he winds up promising himself that he’ll be better this time.

 

Most mornings Derek watches him. Studies the easy rise and fall of his pale chest as Stiles sleeps. His eyelashes seem unnaturally long, and his face appears so young and carefree in sleep. Derek wishes he could steal the ring of doubt that haunts Stiles’s eyes when he wakes. He wishes he could take him back to those early days when Stiles would pop up to see him with a sly smile and a flimsy excuse.

 

Realistically, Derek knows Stiles couldn’t stay happy forever—especially not with Derek, during that time, and for that he will forever be sorry. He was so broken then—hell, he’s still broken now—Derek was a different sort of mess. Now his mess is more manageable. Sometimes you have to hit rock-bottom before you can drag yourself back up, and Derek’s spent his whole life learning the hard way.

 

***

 

“I love you,” Stiles whispers one night when Derek joins him in bed after a long shift. The weight of the world falls to the floor with his tan uniform, and Derek crawls into bed to chase the comfort Stiles gives. His slim fingers trace Derek’s bare hip and Derek hisses at the touch.

 

“I know,” Derek whispers and he tries to give Stiles a cocky smile, but it falters when Stiles stares at him with those wide, sincere eyes.

 

“No, Derek,” he whispers and sits up on his knees as he guides Derek to lie back against the soft bed, “I really do love you.”

 

When Stiles takes Derek’s cock in his hand, and guides him into his ready body, Derek’s response comes out winded—as if he’s been punched in the gut. “I love you, too, Stiles, so much.” It’s the first time he says it though he’s thought the sentiment a thousand times over, and he thinks that maybe that is something he shouldn’t keep to himself. Love is something he shouldn’t bury.

 

 ***

 

Hours later, as Stiles arches with a bright red flush creeping up his pale chest, with his head thrown back, and the long line of his throat exposed, Derek hears it. The familiar crash of cells as they come together to create new life. Derek comes a second time just from the sound, and Stiles trembles above him as he follows.

 

***

 

In the night when Stiles sleeps, naked and innocent, next to him Derek traces his finger across the pale contours of Stiles’s stomach. He leans down, brushes a gentle kiss to the flesh, and whispers, “I can’t wait to meet you.” He sits up, leans against the dark headboard, and traces a finger over Stiles’s cheek that is aglow from the dim yellow streetlights outside. Derek studies his face, tracks ever subtle movement, and smiles sadly. “I’m sorry.” He’s not sure why he says it, and he’s not sure who the apology is for. It could be a number of people: his mother, sister, daughter, cousins, Cora, Peter, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, Jennifer, Scott, Allison, John, or this new life he’s made so recklessly. But as he watches Stiles mumble in his sleep Derek knows he means it most when it comes to Stiles. “I hurt everything I love.” His smile is bitter a moment longer, but then he moves and presses his face back to Stiles’s stomach—nosing around the fading pink scar.


End file.
